warning from the pentagon, they say more than 700,000 civilian workers would have to take one day off without pay a week. one day after president obama continued his plea to the public and to congress saying that this is going to be devastating for the economy, he wants congress to act and it comes one day after a bipartisan commission released a new plan that would detail $2.4 trillion cuts over 12 years. mara? >> thank you. >>> we'll have more on those budget cuts and other political stories later in the show. >>> he was being considered for a big show, but now general john allen has announced that he's retired. he completed 19 months as top commander in afghanistan, instead of taking the new job, he'll retire to help his wife deal with health issues. here's your "first look" at the dish of scrambled politics americans still don't like congress very much. 15% approve of the job that the lawmakers are doing, up one point from last month. >>> deanny hoyer said that the 2016 presidential race is easy to predict, if hillary clinton decides to win, she'll clear the field. >>> tea party g

pentagon is said to be hit hardest with a $56 billion cut. >>> john mccain believes senator chuck hagel will likely be confirmed a week from today. >> i don't believe he is qualified but i don't believe we should hold up his nomination any folder because it is a reasonable time to have questions answered. >> they say they need more time to have questions answered about senator chuck hagel and john mccain believes the vote should go forward. >>> a family is in shock after their teenage daughter was shot. renee mcfarland was shot just hours after heresies' attended -- her sister attended the president's speech. >> every time think about the way my child died, she didn't deserve it. she did not deserve that. >> police say the teen was visiting family in north chicago when she was shot in an alley. a memorial has been set up in the spot where she lost her life. >> they are warning americans to be careful at one of peru's most favorite site. they announced peruvian terrorists may have time to be connected to a rebel group known as the shining path. peru began a crackdown against their

about to make history in the middle east with the controversial drones. we're live at pentagon with the details on this. plus, the man convicted in the killing of his washington intern named chandra levy wants a whole new trial. his lawyers said that lawyers did not give him a fair shake and this thing must be tried again. his time. his time. step seven point two one two. rify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. can make any old day a special occasion. so she makes her new mini cream pies with real cream filling and milk chocolate on a cookie-crumb crust. marie callender's. it's time to savor. humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance

is considered to be the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. >>> number four now. the pentagon grounded the entire fleet of f-35 fighter jets because a crack was found in the engine of one of the planes dungbillion, the f-35 program is the most expensive weapon system in military history. number five, police are on an intense manhunt foreign the occupants of a range rover involved in a las vegas shooting. shots fired from that car killed the driver of a maserati which then crashed into a taxi. the taxi driver and his occupant were both killed. it caused a major pileup on the las vegas strip and there were three others injured. >>> now to the high-profile case of olympic icon oscar pistorius accused of murdering his model girlfriend reeva steenkamp. a south african judge granted him bail saying he's not a flight risk. it's a tale that has more twists and turns than a hollywood movie. earlier i asked jane velez-mitchell if granting bail was the right call. >> i do not. i think it's actually an outrage. imagine how all the people behind bars in south african james feel right now a

sequestration happen. the commonwealth would be burdened by the budget cuts with the pentagon, the u.s. navy base and high numbers of defense and civilian government contractors in the state. >> the president's day celebration is in full swing in alexandria. rolled through old town this afternoon. visitors can get into historic sites. take walking tours. there are even wine tastings going on. >> if you couldn't get to the parade, luck out with tickets to the white house easter egg roll. the lottery opens thursday morning at 10:00. you have from then to the 25th to sign up. march 1st find out if you snagged a ticket in the lottery. scheduled for monday april the 1st. that is the day after easter. head over to myfoxdc.com and look for a link to the ticket site. hopefully you'll have more luck than people trying to get beyonce tickets. >> i'm keeping my fingers crossed. >>> coming up tonight, a new study shows a positive impact certain tv shows can have on your children. >> i pushed him away. that's when he slapped jonah. >> and a man accused of slapping a toddler gets slapped back by his

officer who spent years working with pentagon tax dollars has a bold answer for sequestitration and a message from washington. what was the light in the sky broof san francisco. reports from witnesses and a video backing up the claims. a mysterous flying object and this time in u.s. air space and coming just hours after a metor exploding thousands of miles away and rattling buildings and people below . fox reports from inside russia on the cosmic clean up following a direct hit from outer space . a new warning over the defense budget showdown this time from the army's top brass. in my opinion sequestation is not in the best interest of the national security. it places a burden on the soldiers and civilians and plus, questions tonight about whether washington is playing politics with the troops and what deep cuts would mean for our military. and a police cruiser there one moment and gone the next after a car slams into it somewhere caught in all of that blur, a little boy. >> i am harris faulkner and it is time for the clean up the day after what looked like an assault from the sky. am

pentagon ordered its entire fleet of f-35 fighter jets grounded. here's why. a crack was found in the engine of one of the planes during a routine inspection. at nearly $400 billion, this high-tech jet system, this is for all of them, the most expensive weapon system in military history. $400 billion buys you 51 planes in that fleet. >>> a homework assignment has many up in arms. listen to this. two teachers at a new york elementary school wrote math word problems on slavery. here's one of the questions -- in a slave ship, there are 3,799 slaves. one day the slaves took over the ship. 1,897 slaves were dead. how many slaves are left? we could have done this with apples. the department of education says they will take disciplinary action against those teachers. training will also be required for all staff at the school. >>> the justice department says it plans to sue lance armstrong for using performance-enhancing drugs. they will join in the suit filed two years ago by former teammate floyd landis. the civil lawsuit claims that armstrong and his teammates violated their sponsorship ag

government. there's thought to be 25 million dollars in improper payments just in the pentagon and we haven't audited the pentagon because they say they're too big to be audited, but this is going on decade after decade. what i say is good leadership would be putting-- wouldn't be putting the policemen behind you and 95% of them paid by local taxes. if we have good leadership in the country we've known the sequester is coming for a year and why didn't we have a freeze where we didn't replace any federal workers, na would have saved 6 billion over the year we've been waiting for the sequester. >> greta: do you have any opposition to the suggestion we go into sequestration and allow the obama administration to move funds around to accommodate certain programs they think are the right ones to pay? >> yeah, there's a pay that the money can be moved around. for example, in the military they have 5.2 million they spent on gold fish, studying gold fish to see how democratic they were and if we could learn about democracy from gold fish. i would give the president the authority to go ahead an

. the defense, the pentagon says this week that it was issuing furlough notices to about 800,000 civilian employees. to prepare to be furloughed. so in the case of the pentagon, you know, that means that destroyers, various aircraft carriers will not deploy to places like the persian gulf and other theatre, and that's a big effect on local economies, in areas like rampton rode, virginia, san diego. and it's an effect affect that will be clearly felt on contractors who rely on navy contracts for shipbuildings. so i think the affects will be gradual. no one can really tell when the agencies will sort of pull the plug. and as i said, the cuts nay not take effect for that long. >> suarez: you said at the outset there is a political dimension to this. of course as we enter the final week there most certainly is what is the they are telling opinion researchers if friday comes and goes without a deal? >> well, i think part of the problem is that many americans don't really understand what sequestration is. it's become this obsession in washington. but many people are only just now begin

chief's pentagon budget officer says the furlough will save the government $4 billion to $5 billion, but president obama says the cuts should be made elsewhere. >> there's no reason they should be furloughed or laid off. >> president obama is trying to pin the blame for the last-minute budget crisis on congress and with both chambers on recess this week he has the stage here in washington all to himself. >> i'm hoping while they're back home, they're hearing it from their constituents so when they get back here, they're ready to do some work and we can avoid these automatic spending cuts. >> but congressmen back home may not be getting the earful the president's hoping for. while nearly half of the americans want to avoid it less than 40% want to let it happen and some of capitol hill agree with the 40%. >> not only should the sequester stand. many pundits say the sequester falls short. >> if the cuts kick in, that same poll shows more people would blame republicans in congress than the president. now some areas these budget cuts will not affect social security medicare, medicaid, a

developing this morning. chuck hagel, president obama's pick to run the pentagon, will be in limbo a little while longer. attempts to break a republican fiphillfilibuster failed in the. hagel's confirmation will have to wait until after congress returns from a ten-day recess. democrats accuse gop senators of putting politics before national security. dana bash on the setback for the obama administration. >> on this vote, the yea are 58, nays 40. the motion is not agreed to. >> reporter: chuck hagel fell short of the 60 votes needed to be defense secretary. >> not a secretary in the history of defense has been filibustered. never ever. >> reporter: some say hagual e hagel -- >> we have a responsibility to consider the nominee. a number of the republican senators have questions. >> reporter: but democrats see it another way. that republicans are dragging their feet on hagel in order to look for more information to bring him down. let's not hide behind a filibuster. let's have the courage, vote yes or vote no. don't hide behind parliamentary tricks. >> reporter: the white house knew f

sequester. >> reporter: the pentagon would take a major hit, forcing a reduction in training that could mean longer tours of duty for troops in afghanistan. senator john mccain says we should listen to the warnings of the generals. >> if we don't believe our military leaders, who in the world do we believe? i think that what we are doing now to the men and women who are serving is unconscionable because they deserve a predictable life in the military. >> reporter: the nation's governors are worried about what would happen in their own state fist those budget cuts take effect. listen. >> all of this have a real concern about the impact in our respective states,ing in terms of the potential cuts if they do nothing, but in terms of the alternatives. >> reporter: the sequester takes effect march 1 unless congress takes action to stop it, eric. >> eric: all right, steve. how do we avoid the gut-wrenching, government, financial roller coasters and get our nation back to real economic health? one of the governors, a government official taking action on taxes happens to be a veteran of wa

haguele vote happening in the senate floor. dana bash on capitol hill. barbara starr at the pentagon. dana, i understand 15 republicans voting with the democrats to move forward on the official vote for hagel as defense secretary. how did it break down? what do we know? >> reporter: after all of the division, all of the debate, all of the delay, this was a pretty bipartisan vote to stop this filibuster and to allow the haguele nomination to go through. 71-27. that's right. 71-27. it wasn't even close to move this along. and we believe actually maybe more towards 18 republicans. we're trying to get the final breakdown. we can report that the final confirmation vote will happen in about two hours plus, 4:30 eastern. three hours, i should say. by the end of the day, chuck hagel, according to the vote, will be officially confirmed by the senate as the next defense secretary, after a lot of partisan division and pretty ugly back and forth about him and about his positions and it's gotten personal. >> and i want to bring in barbara starr at the pentagon. obviously there are some things he'

pentagon under sequestration because it goes across the board, they can't kill one program, every department, every subset has to feel the pain and so they're cautious on this point, but really, when you talk to them and you get them to say. and give them a choice between what the president is pitching and done in an unpleasant way they'd still rather have the cuts. >> he talks about, stu, look, we can avoid the cuts if we come up with a balanced program and all i'm asking for from the republicans is reasonable tax reform. that's it. we'll close a couple of loopholes, only the rich will feel that and the republicans are so married to the rich that they can't even save the lives of human beings and the jobs of first responders because they're so opposed to tax reform and the journal has questions about his definition of tax reform. your thoughts on that. >> yes, he has changed what tax reform means. tax reform, to the republicans, up until the last election. tax reform was, lower tax rates. get rid of some deductions, raise more revenue for the treasury, that was tax reform. but th

of defense leon panetta also warns the cuts with hit the pentagon especially hard. while a great deal of the money would come from military training units 000s of civilians could face big pay cuts and even layoffs. particularly in two states. jennifer griffin at the pentagon for us tonight. >> reporter: iif the deep budgt cuts go into effect in 8 days time the hardest hit states will be california and virginia. 17% of the defense cuts in virginia will likely fall on one community known as hampton roads. in fact, the human impact of the sequester on small businesses in this area, these businesses contract to the navy, it is already being felt. tom taylor owns a ship repair business near norfolk. some of his contracts with the navy are already in jeopardy. >> it is not like turning on a picket. you don't turn it on and turn it off. if it is canceled these things are are months or years in the planning stage. if they are canceled they don't come right back, you know. so that is pretty alarming. >> i want to know when am i looking dark am i getting laid off in march or april. in you are o

apparently recent trend. with 71% of the tears falling since 1995. good work. >>> the pentagon's most ex opinionsive weapons program, the most has hit a huge snag. tonight it's grounded an entire fleet of fighter jets and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars could be on the line. plus, the woman who admits she shot her ex-boyfriend, slit his throat and stabbed him 27 times. of course, she doesn't remember the stabbing part. today her attorneys made a last ditch effort to take the death penalty off the table. so how did that go? there is a ruling and it's coming up. >> shepard: more great news, we could flight delays lasting more than an hour. triggering ripple effects because of this fake thing that's going on in washington. and it is. the transportation secretary ray lahood warns today that could be the new normal unless the president and lawmakers reach a deal to avoid those harsh spending cuts set to take effect one week. secretary lahood added the cuts could force nearly 100 traffic control towers to close entirely. that would likely happen in smaller airports, some of them in to

nominated, and they had told us only five or six days ago that he was still -- the pentagon still wants him to take that position. he was temporarily sidelined by an inquiry into whether they were inappropriate emails between him and jill kelly, the tampa woman involved in the whole petraeus situation, and then he was cleared of any wrong doing by the pentagon. >> you know, we're told now that this -- i mean, this is a sad episode. we're told he did not want to come to -- his family would be involved, and he would have to answer questions. >> you know, draen, i think this shows you that even when you are cleared now the damage done. it's -- it seems hard for me to believe that if the whole jill kelly episode hpt ever aired publicly, that he would have decided he would have wanted to step aside. it seemed like he was on the fast track to get that job. these things -- i think what everyone forgets, this is true with military, this is true with particularly at that level, and it's absolutely true of politicians. these people are people. the focus of the coverage of these emails got lots and lo

the military and i wonder if those people standing behind them are from the pentagon. i don't want anybody to lose their job. but it is interesting that the comments did focus on the members of military. >> brian: $85 billion and $1.2 trillion in the next ten years and half of that money comes out the have the pentagon. i think republicans agreed with it but this is thrust postpone us. it was over a year we knew about at the questions terrify. why weren't we negotiating through december and then you have january and here we are couple weeks away and the president is going with this shame attack followed by speaker boehner, your solution to get us to raise taxes after we agreed to raise taxes. now, they say the rich have to pay their fair share again. maybe we should focus on facebook who paid no money in taxes last year or g.e. who did exactly the same thing. >> gretchen: it works last time. shaming the republicans worked. they decided to raise taxes and in the public image and public opinion it worked last time to blame reopens. why wouldn't you try it again? a lot of people say l

trained and supported and applaud the deranged fanatics who flew airports pentagon anded 14 people in fort hood and soldiers in little rock and planted ied's on the road side in stanford and iraq to kill those. i have a hard time convincing americans why it does matter that we act like friends to our friends and stop believes that our are not that different after all. >> israel is the only in the middle east who mirrors our equal of human beings and freedom and value of education and power of dissent even with one's only government and the right of the people to their government without ballots and bullets and bombs. the president could with draw the nomination of chuck hagel as defense security. he is so ignorant of the real enemy we face he believe that is iran can be trusted and israel can't. high would be better suited for taking tickets at yellow stone than defending against the treats. ip hope you will call and e-mail your senator to use common sense and while acknowledging that the president has the privilege to name his team. he doesn't have the right to put people on his team that

repair their homes and businesses. the pentagon will take a major hit in its huge civilian work force. >> this is not a beltway phenomenon. more than 80% of our civilians work outside of the dc metro area. they live and work in every state of the union. if furloughs experience a 20% decrease in their pay between late april >> one economist estimates the sequester could put more than 2 million people out of work. ten percent of them in california. >> pam: developing at five -- the midwest feeling the pain of a severe winter storm. right now air travel still trying to recover -- this is video from an airport in st. louis. passengers stranded overnight. now the storm is moving towards new england. i'm here in the weather center with jaqueline -- is the worst over? >> jacqueline: it is not over. from what we can see in the south. some of these storms are severe towards the gulf coast. we swe can see the flow coming off of the gulf of mexico and ises impacting mississippi. through georgia. as we take a look and and what is in the mornings, these rainfall totals are heavy. with severe

facts. pentagon will take the biggest hit from the cuts. president obama warned of dire consequences yesterday. >> the threat of these cuts has forced the navy to delay the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the persian gulf. affecting our ability to respond

, couldn't plan for it. as late as september the pentagon was saying they were still trying to understand what the law was. in december they hadn't started. just a few weeks ago they start coming out now with all these dooms day scenarios. the reality is that the president could have stopped it. the house of representatives has passed not one, but two bills that would have stopped it. the senate has done nothing. martha, when the president talks about a balanced budget, most americans think what he means we balance the amount of money coming in with the amount of money coming out. martha: right. >> that is not what the president talks about with balance. martha: that is interesting, jay carney quoted alan simpson but the other thing he did not quote that alan simpson said, if this president does not get serious about deficit reduction, including taking on medicare and social security and reforming those entitlement programs, that he will have a failed presidency. do you think that is a message republicans have done a good job getting across? >> well, martha, i think that it is very diffic

the pentagon. "the baltimore sun" headlines read big pay cut contemplated for civilian defense workers. "the washington post", u.s. schools brace for federal funding cuts. the "new york times" meantime highlights federal spending cuts threaten delays in air travel. let me bring in loren fox politics reporter for "u.s. news and world report" and "usa today" washington bureau chief susan paige. good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> the president clearly thinks he has the upper hand. your poll yesterday suggested he does but is he in danger of overplaying it? >> well, it's always possible. we'll see what -- how much people really feel the impact if the sequester cuts go into effect as we think they probably will next week. but what we found in the new "usa today"/pew research poll is that about half of americans say it is going to be the fault of congressional republicans if they can't reach a deal. just 31% said they'd blame the president. that's pretty good standing for the president going into yet another one of these fiscal cliff hangers. >> they're talking about

pentagon and do this physically, it would be war. i don't quite understand how much of a difference there is practically speaking. >> we are reaching a policy point where that decision's going to have to be made. at what point do we declare war in a cyberspace domain when somebody does something, you know. the intrusion i was on talking with you. i mean, we've talked a lot of times about china, the joint strike fighter intrusion, los alamos labs, very sensitive areas. nuclear weapons. stealth technology. if you can't beat us at the game, you steal our secrets to achieve parity quicker. it puts us at a disadvantage and makes the job of the people securing the infrastructure more costly and dangerous. >> shepherd: when this nation was in its infancy, people say we did the same thing. >> yeah. it was00 years ago. they need to get over that. not saying we're totally clean in some of these areas, but the sophistication, the state sponsorship, the fact that a couple of the chinese technology companies are staffed by former members of the pla that are in direct competition with u.s. companies, n

of the defense secretary leon panetta, pentagon personnel are working to extend certain benefits to same-sex domestic partners, but is the attempt to make the military more inclusive to one group making it discrimnator tow another. the defense secretary has ordered the defense department to extend benefits to same-sex domestic partners, haymust formally declare their commitment to each other and attest that they are of the same sex, meaning these benefits will know be given to heterosexual couples who are unmarried and otherwise meet the definition of domestic partners. >> i think this does qualify as discrimination of opposite sex couple who is are unmarried and living together. >> shannon: in the 2010 report in the don't ask/don't tell, the pentagon warned of this, saying, quote, if the department of defense creates a newing categoy of unmarried, dependent only for same-sex relationship, the department would be creating a new inequity, between couples. >> this administration is using the military for social engineering. i think it's significant they they are going beyond what they